Quotes by Madeleine L'Engle

The author & the reader know each other: they meet on the bridge of words

Inspiration usually comes during work rather than before it.

The unending paradox is that we do learn through pain.

Come te picciol fallo amaro morso! Dante. What grievous pain a little fault doth give thee!

The artist cannot hold back; it is impossible, because writing, or any other discipline of art, involves participation in suffering, in the ills and the occasional stabbing joys that come from being part of the human drama.

Lords of fire and earth and water,Lords of moon and wind and sky,Come now to the Old Mans daughter,Come from fathers long gone by.Bring blue from a distance eye.Lords of water, earth, and fire,Lords of wind and snow and rain,Give to my hearts desire.Life as all life comes with pain,But blue will come to us again.

No long-term marriage is made easily, and there have been times when Ive been so angry or so hurt that I thought my love would never recover. And then, in the midst of near despair, something has happened beneath the surface. A bright little flashing fish of hope has flicked silver fins and the water is bright and suddenly I am returned to a state of love again — till next time. Ive learned that there will always be a next time, and that I will submerge in darkness and misery, but that I wont stay submerged. And each time something has been learned under the waters; something has been gained; and a new kind of love has grown. The best I can ask for is that this love, which has been built on countless failures, will continue to grow. I can say no more than that this is mystery, and gift, and that somehow or other, through grace, our failures can be redeemed and blessed.

--So we reached our decisions simultaneously, and apart, and if I knew that Court was fighting a battle, did he, too, sense mine? Did it have anything to do with his coming back to life again? For he is here, I am no longer living with a marble image. And I will never know why. Court being Court I can never ask him why; we wrestled with our problems alone and we must live alone with the answers. And is it part of a marriage, part of being a human being, that we must always reach our decisions alone?

Charles Wallace and the unicorn moved through the time-spinning reaches of a far glazy, and he realized that the galaxy itself was part of a mighty orchestra, and each star and planet within the galaxy added its own instrument to the music of the spheres. As long as the ancient harmonies were sung, the universe would not entirely lose its joy.

Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connait point. French. Pascal. The heart has its reasons, whereof reason knows nothing.

At Tara in this fateful hour,I place all Heaven with its power,And the sun with its brightness,And the snow with its whiteness,And the fire with all the strength it hath,And the lightning with its rapid wrath,And the winds with their swiftness along their path,And the sea with its deepness,And the rocks with their steepness,And the earth with its starkness:All these I place,By Gods almighty help and graceBetween myself and the powers of darkness!

The well-intentioned mothers who dont want their children polluted by fairy tales would not only deny them their childhood, with its high creativity, but they would have them conform to the secular world, with its dirty devices. The world of fairy tale, fantasy, myth, is inimical to the secular world, and in total opposition to it, for it is interested not in limited laboratory proofs but in truth.

Growing up is a process that never ends. It isnt a point you attain so you can say, Hooray, Im grown up. Some people never grow up. And nobody ever finishes growing. Or shouldnt. If you stop you might as well quit. What I have to tell you is that it never gets any easier. It goes right on being rough forever. But nothing thats easy is worth anything. You ought to have learned that by now. What happens as you keep on growing is that all of a sudden you realize that its more exciting and beautiful than scary and awful.

You dont want him for a reason. You want him because hes your father.

In so-called primitive societies there are two words for power, mana and taboo: the power which creates and the power which destroys; the power which is benign and the power which is malign. Odd that we have retained in our vocabulary the word for dangerous power, taboo, and have lost mana.

The story comes, and it is pure story. Thats all I set out to write. But I dont believe that we can write any kind of story without including, whether we intend to or not, our response to the world around us.

Lords of spirit, Lords of breath,Lords of fireflies, stars, and light,Who will keep the world from death?Who will stop the coming night?Blue eyes, blue eyes, have the sight.

We have to be braver than we think we can be, because God is constantly calling us to be more than we are.

She was enfolded in the great wings of Mrs. Whatsit and she felt comfort and strength pouring through her. Mrs. Whatsit was not speaking aloud, and yet through the wings Meg understood words.My child, do not despair. Do you think we would have brought you here if there was no hope? We are asking you to do a difficult thing, but we are confident that you can do it. Your father needs help, he needs courage, and for his children he may be able to do what he cannot do for himself.

We want them to see their home planet, Mrs. Whatsit said. The Medium lost the delighted smile she had worn till then. Oh, why must you make me look at unpleasant things when there are so many delightful ones to see?Again Mrs. Whichs voice reverberated through the cave. There will no longer be so many pleasant things to look at if responsible people do not do something about the unpleasant ones.